The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • When PDP plays victim

    I can hazard a guess as to why PDP looters, indicted, in court struggling to establish their innocence or on the run from justice, exude neither a sense of shame nor a feeling of regret for their 16 years of rape of our commonwealth in form of periodic rigging of elections as recently confirmed by Senator Ibrahim Mantu during a live Channels Television programme.  Or the theft of our commonwealth through diversion of the nation’s resources to personal use or outright confiscation of a national patrimony kept in their care for the use of our children. Did ex-President Obasanjo who they fondly call ‘Baba’  (father) not too long ago told Nigerians  nothing embarrasses him? The truth of the matter is that PDP looters have no sense of shame. Instead of remorse, they play the victim whipping up sentiments about media trial and daring government take them to court where according to Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, former CBN Governor, “it took two years to secure only one indictment out of 164 banking sector fraud cases” with Jonathan blaming everything on ‘slow wheel of justice’.

    The near-collapsed economy and the massive unemployment of our youths which ex-President Obasanjo expects Buhari to fix in three years stemmed from the self-serving PDP policies such as  privatisation which according to a House probe report, was a device for confiscating our budding, hospitality, banking, manufacturing and  service industries. Ignoring this major source of nation’s travail, Vice President Osinbajo two weeks back, chose to speak only about looters, (the common thieves) who “withdrew and shared over N150b two weeks before the 2015 elections but who  the opposition and their backers would brook no reference to”.

    Obviously working on the theory that Nigerians have short memories, PDP spokesperson, Kola Ologbodiyan immediately dared him to name the PDP looters. And when in response to the challenge, Lai Mohammed, the Information Minister released some names of alleged looters, Reno Omokri, a spokesperson for former President Goodluck Jonathan, came out with what he described as “The Real Looters List That Buhari and Lai Mohammed Do Not Want You To Know About.”

    Then my very good friend, Chief Mike Ozekhome, a very resourceful counsel and a toast of alleged looters decided to join the fray. Ozekhome, it will be recalled, successfully defended ex- President Jonathan over his removal of Lamido Sanusi as CBN governor for playing the role of a whistleblower in the alleged missing   $20b NNPC fund. He then went on to floor the government and its EFCC  over an allegation that Ayo Fayose received N3b from President Jonathan NSA  even with Senator Musliu Obanikoro who not only admitted ferrying the money in two aircraft to Akure en route Ado Ekiti but started refunding back to government his own portion of about N8b as a prosecution witness. Chief Ozekhome is also currently defending Patience Jonathan, the ex-president better half over her claim to some $15m traced to some suspicious bank accounts which did not bear her name.

    Probably acting in his capacity as a respected human right lawyer, Chief Ozekhome who is not known to be a PDP counsel, has decided to do battle with the Buhari administration. According to him: “Everything they have done is what we call red herring, a diversionary tactics to divert the attention of suffering Nigerians from the woeful failure of this government….This government has failed on all indices; it’s a government that has made deep corruption its cradle rather than anti-corruption. This is the most corrupt government in Nigeria since the Lugardian amalgamation on January 1, 1914″.

    Although the chief has never known failure in his many crusades on behalf of alleged looters, I will however counsel that the issue of whose administration between Jonathan and Buhari is more corrupt should be left to social scientists who know how to attach weights to public opinion.

    But let us return to issue of looters. So far it is obvious PDP alleged looters are not interested in invalidating Professor Osinbajo’s claim. Their angst seems to be about other suspected APC looters in government whose names did not feature in Lai Mohammed’s list. And here let me also offer an unsolicited advice. If PDP’s current fight with APC is about reinforcing the old theory about Buhari’s alleged selective anti-corruption war, they should stop dissipating energy and equip their arsenals for the 2019 election. Because of their baleful legacies, they cannot make the case better than APC Senator Shehu Sani who has accused the president of fighting corruption among the opposition with insecticide but with deodorant among his own party men. It is also not lost on Nigerian electorate that Pa Bisi Akande, the interim chairman of APC was recently quoted as saying that John Odigie-Oyegun, who has been going around the country recruiting ex PDP alleged looters into the APC, has destroyed the APC he inherited.

    I think, what should be of concern to PDP’s alleged looters is how to establish their innocence, defend their honour and refund whatever they looted with apologies to Nigerians instead of thinking that they can, on the basis of Buhari’s failings, ride back to power in 2019, or on the back of Ayo Fayose and Nyesom Wike, the new owners of PDP.

    But beyond looted N150b, let me also give an unsolicited advice to PDP, Jonathan and Obasanjo their father on areas of concentration as they get ready for 2019. With the retirement of Tony Anenih ‘the fixer’ and Senator Mantu becoming a ‘born again’ politician, they should get answers ready for the following unresolved monumental stealing:

    Obasanjo, who recently dismissed Buhari’s government as “ineffective, incompetent and a failure’ inherited a total power capacity of 1500mw in 1999. He however promised Nigerians while inaugurating the Nigeria Integrated Power Project (NIPP) in 2001 that the scheme would add 10,000MW to the national grid before the end of his term in 2007 and hoped his successors would be driven with the same zeal and move the planned target up to 20,000MW by 2015. President Jonathan himself was to say later that any Nigerian with generator would by 2014 have no need for them. Unfortunately what both father and son bequeathed on Nigeria by 2015 was a meager 3117MW. Jonathan similarly never responded to two United Nations Special Rapporteurs’ November 2013 letter demanding accountability “for a total of $51billion sunk in Nigeria’s power sector over a period of 10 years.”

    In 2011 through acts of omission of Diezani Alison-Madueke, minister of petroleum and Ahmadu Alli, former chairman of Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, a whopping N1.7 trillion was, according to House committee probe report, allegedly stolen by those with close links with PDP and government.

    Akinwunmi Adesina, as Minister of Agriculture confirmed during “Agbeloba’ Agro Business Forum 2013″ organised by Ekiti State government that “Nigerian leaders stole N776 billion out of N873 billion released for fertilizer subsidy between 1980 and 2010”. (PDP was in government for 11 of those 30 years).

    There was also the ‘Oduahgate’ in which the minister of aviation was alleged to have approved an expenditure of $800,000 for a BMW armoured car whose market going price is $200,000.

    PDP and their father should also be reminded of EFCC’s claim that the rural electrification exercise “were used as conduit pipes with which funds of the Rural Electrification Agency were siphoned by the two houses” leading to misappropriation of over N10 billion of public funds. We can add for the benefit of those concerned the kerosene rip off through which President Jonathan’s trusted friends allegedly spent over N500b within four years purportedly on kerosene subsidy.

  • Buhari and the 2019 race

    WHEN President Muhammadu Buhari walked into the venue of the meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on April 9, no other person, except himself knew what was on his mind. Nobody knew that the President had something of great importance to say. They thought it was going to be the usual NEC meeting, where the President would come, give some pieces of advice and leave. He did that last March 27 when he opposed tenure extension for the Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, and other members of the National Working Committee (NWC).

    On that occasion, he said having received legal advice, it would be politically suicidal for the party to extend the tenure of it’s  NWC members in view of the forthcoming elections. He explained that if the party wins, its opponents might use that against it to get its election annulled. Those who sought tenure extension for Oyegun and others never looked at it from that perspective. They were only after their own interest. The party could go down the drain for all they care.

    Although they rode on APC’s back  to power, their plan to remain in office at all costs seems to have blindfolded them to the fact that they have to protect it to enable it continue to serve them. The APC is a coalition of forces. Welding these centrifugal forces together is truly not easy, but the political actors should bear this in mind –  any break up will adversely affect each group that makes up the mega party. The Congress of Progressive Change (CPC), the  Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), among others, know what they went through to form APC in order to wrest power from PDP.

    Having come this far, is it now that they would allow internal wrangling to put them asunder? Buhari’s intervention in the tenure elongation brouhaha has saved APC from hoisting itself on its petard. Though the tenure elongation palaver may have been resolved, the fact is that many are still not satisfied with how it all ended.

    The President is seen by many party members as a father figure. They believe in his integrity and not in his political acumen. They do not see the President as a politician in the strict sense of the word because, according to them, he does not play the game the way the typical Nigerian politician does. The President, they say, is too direct and open. The typical Nigerian politician is not cut in that cloth. He lies, lies and lies through his teeth in order to get his way. Some APC members will tell anybody who cares to listen that if the President had played his politics well certain things would not have happened in the life of this administration. They are quick to cite the emergence of Dr Bukola Saraki as Senate president;  the delay in the appointment of ministers and the constitution of boards.

    With his declaration to seek reelection in 2019, the President may have swept the carpet off the feet of other aspirants. Will anybody in APC challenge him for the presidential ticket? That is not likely to happen. The ticket is as good as his even before the convention. Ever before his declaration, the issue of whether he would run again or not, had generated heat. Does he deserve a second term? To many, the answer is yes and to many again, it is no. Yet many are undecided. But the elite do not want him to come back. When I say the elite, I am using former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former military leader Gen Ibrahim Babangida as the yardstick.

    While Obasanjo advised the President not to seek a second term, Babangida is asking for a “digital leader” in 2019. Although they may have put it differently, it is crystal clear that they do not want Buhari to seek reelection. The President said he would be seeking reelection because of Nigerians’ clamour for him to run again. When he began his ongoing visit to Britain, he said he declared before travelling because Nigerians were ‘’talking too much’’ about whether or not he would contest. Now that the President has declared, things are bound to move at dizzying speed. Already, he has set out to work. His campaign organisation headed by Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi has swung into action. The organisation on Tuesday named Festus Keyamo (SAN) as its spokesman.

    Who will challenge Buhari in next year’s election in the other parties? Can they get candidates to match him in integrity? Will it be smooth sailing for the President at the polls just as it was in 2015? How far can his integrity carry him in the election? In 2015, Nigerians voted against the PDP-led government in protest because they were fed up with happenings in the country then. Have things changed? How have the citizenry fared between then and now? Are their lot better? On the performance index, how will they rate the President? Does his rating merit a reelection?

    The power to choose belongs to the electorate. The choice they make will determine where the country will be in the comity of nations. What will the people’s choice be in 2019? Will they heed the admonition that other aspirants should just disappear because the President has thrown his hat in the ring and vote him again? Or will they try a new hand? The answer is in the womb of time.

     

    Who stole the mace?

    IT was like a movie scene. The Senate was in session when some tough looking guys stormed its hallowed chamber yesterday. They knew what they were after and they wasted no time in executing their plan. They came for the mace – the Senate’s symbol of authority. The ceremonial staff was in its place close to the Senate President’s seat. The guys knew the implication of their action. Without the mace, the Senate cannot sit and that was all they wanted – to truncate  proceedings. They succeeded.  They snatched the mace, ran through the chamber and fled out of the National Assembly complex. How did they achieve all that in a twinkling of an eye? And for few minutes, the Senate broke up to consider what happened in an executive session.

    The operation did not last more than 10 minutes, but it was clinically executed. The sergeant-at-arms and his men, who keep order in the place, were caught flatfooted. They looked nonplussed as the thugs stormed in and out of the Senate. How did those guys invade the Senate without being stopped? How did they get out of the highly fortified National Assembly with the mace?

    The boys were said to have gained access into the Senate because they came in with suspended Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, who is being linked with the incident One thing is clear though, the stealing of the mace does not augur well for our democracy. Again, the security agencies, especially, the police have failed us. They could not act when the highest legislative body in the land was invaded. What a shame.

  • A poison of freedom and fiscal flowers

    There is a joke in contemporary circuits that the battle for Nigeria’s freedom would be fought and won in social space and by the cudgels and blades of ‘woke’ youth. This notion sprouts from ideological fields at home and abroad, where pasture, copse and tributary of thought, flourish from sickly seeds of violence and death.

    Being ‘woke’ is next to being a deity in contemporary youth circuits. It confers on the ‘woke’ a colossal ego, an exaggerated sense of awareness and idolatry of fawning peer. Hence the revolutionary chants wielded to inflame the polity via Facebook, Twitter, and shades of mainstream and manipulable media.

    Beneath the radical chants, however, subsists an immoderate hankering for money, fast cars and other material things. This translates to a morbid race against time, to acquire wealth by ‘woke’ young assassins, internet scammers (Yahoo Boys), and prostitutes.

    Lest we forget the gangs of ‘woke’ political thugs, human rights activists, ‘youth leaders,’ public officers, pen robbers, armed robbers and thieves comprising the nation’s youth.

    Due to perceived trashiness and philosophical harlotry of the journalist, this band of youths do not leave the battle for their freedom from Nigeria’s predatory ruling class to the press.

    However, several youths find their freedom in money and yet lose it to the legal tender, every day. Money changes everything. Every hour, it turns thousands who could have overcome its darkness into eternal addicts to the base and inane.

    For the love of the naira, thousands lose their souls and their lives every day. Man and woman, father and mother, son and daughter, privileged and pauper, engage in the pursuit of money to conquer poverty and be free.

    Cowardice is what we should conquer. Cowardice enslaves all to mean and murderous politicians. It cripples the rage of impoverished youth to the wiles of vicious political parties and public officers.

    While it is appreciable that the incumbent ruling class’s failings stem from its mental, ethical tuberculosis, it becomes worrisome to see the youth bound to its leash.

    An inordinate lust for money enslaves the youth, and cowardice sustains their allegiance to tormentors in the political class.

    A man is either free or not. There can be no apprenticeship for freedom, argues Amiri Baraka, U.S. author and political activist. But Baraka’s wisdom strikes no chord with Nigeria’s ‘woke’ cowardly youth.

    The lure of absolute cowardice cannot be spurned, because it comes wrapped in bouquets of freedoms and fiscal flowers. Hence the youths embrace it.

    Absolute cowardice is their door to freedom. From its thresholds, they seek glimpses of proverbial Eden. Vistas of ancient paradise illumine their world, from modern perversions like DSTV/Multichoice’s Big Brother Naija (BBN) amorality show, private parties and basement orgies, political hooliganism to mention a few.

    In the living theatre of their world, there is no lull between dreams and realisation, toil and rewards; morbid fantasies mutate into instant visibility.

    The afflictions of contemporary youth are akin to medieval Rome’s imperial masques: charades, gruesome sensuality, horseplay and inquisition.

    But while Roman emperors made sexual personae an artistic medium, Nigerian public officers go several steps further; they elevate murderous lust, carnal and ethical perversions to a religion. Touting these as modern forms of freedom, they urge the youth to assemble for worship in their temples of filth.

    The youth, of course, become enthusiastic worshippers in their tormentors’ holy place: think ‘card-carrying’ members of Nigeria’s doctrinal brothels, or political parties if you like. Too many youths have given their souls for shackled forms of freedom.

    In Nigeria, the youth are stage machinery, mannequins, minor actors and decor, in the ruling class’s theatre of the absurd. Considering the antics of BBN inmates, southern cultists, Boko Haram insurgents and murderous herdsmen/terrorists of the north, the lives contemporary youth demonstrate the inadequacies of our modern myth of freedom.

    Nigeria suffers the affliction purportedly free, ‘woke’ youths, who are flummoxed and sickened by their alleged freedom. Sexual liberation, political irresponsibility, financial independence, our deceitful mirage, ends in lassitude inertness.

    Freedom and responsibility are utopian to the Nigerian youth. It does not matter if he is a presiding governor, a legislator, civil society thug, press hooligan or ‘woke’ social media warrior; his afflictions are homogeneous to his roots and pop culture.

    With money, he assumes the integrity of gnomes and adopts the random metamorphosis of greed. Without money, he resists the evolution of worldly experience. He embraces multiplicity of wile, theatrical guise and becomes anarchic, often in tandem with the whims of the ruling class’s wildest bunch.

    Theatrical mutation and excessive self-love, seductive principles of modern youth, can never be reconciled with growth and morality. Contemporary performances of the youth in social and political theatres emphasise Nigeria’s descent from a moral cloud into dissolute fenland.

    Freedom of persona is magical but often destabilising. If married to an excessive lust for money, it becomes very frightening and overwhelming. Ultimately it destroys.

    Like OkwudibaNnoli notes, it uplifts and crushes, enhances and debases, exhilarates and disenchants, dignifies and dehumanizes, enlightens and blinds, unites and divides. Thus under the influence of money, humaneness and the quest for the collective good are ferociously smothered by disruptive and selfish considerations.

    Consequently, justice, freedom, equality, dignity and other human rights, are sacrificed on the altar of the perennial rat-race for the accumulation of money.

    More worrisome is the reality of presumably ‘woke’ youth being unquestioningly docile to the power of money. Their loyalty and sympathies are often hawked to tyrants who treat them like dogs on a leash.

    This is emblematic of Gustave Le Bon’s philosophy of ‘The Crowd,’ which was valued not only by Pareto, Freud, Mussolini, and de Gaulle, but even by Horkheimer and Adorno. Le Bon contends that the type of  “hero dear to crowds will always have the semblance of a Caesar. His insignia attracts them, his authority overawes them, and his sword instills them with fear…Should the strength of an authority be intermittent, the crowd, always obedient to its extreme sentiments, passes alternately from anarchy to servitude, and from servitude to anarchy.”

    • To be continued

     

     

  • When looters call the shots

    Growing up in Ado-Ekiti in the 70s was fun. Elders were symbols of moral rectitude. Kids were told that a good name was worth more than silver and gold. Stealing was the height of moral laxity. It always drew communal anger.

    Whenever the elders felt it was time to reprimand those who might have crossed the line, they got youths to compose songs to fight the moral perverts. A group would move in the night, under the thick cover of darkness, and go close to the home of somebody who had broken the society’s unwritten but strong rules. There would be a lead singer who would call abusive songs against the offender. The crowd would chorus it. The offender would be mentioned by name. He would be advised to change his way. The next day, the night show, “Udi” would become the talk of the town.

    That was when stealing – of yams, goats, plantain and palm wine from another man’s palm tree – was a grave anomaly that was frowned at by all. Somehow, the night rendezvous of songs full of biting invectives was effective, as offenders changed their way after their kids and wives had been well taunted with the shame their behaviour had brought upon their families.

    Not anymore. Times have changed.

    First, we had thieves, muggers, robbers and forgers. Then came robbers, pen robbers and armed robbers. They all seem to have yielded the big stage to looters. We no longer hear of stealing, theft and such non-violent misdemeanours. They fetched little. Looting – and its cousin, corruption – is the reigning king of the crime jungle, sucking in billions – without violence.  Vicious armed robbers, I bet, must be envious. Kidnappers, apparently not to be outdone, have stepped up their evil trade. Some would not collect ransom in naira. They demand dollars.  Or Euro.

    How have looters suddenly become the lead subject of elite discourse? Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, a professor of law to whom making a speech is as smooth as a knife cutting through butter, started it all. He said N150billion was withdrawn and shared two weeks before the 2015 elections. No economy, he said, could absorb this and remain on its feet. Yet, the opposition and their backers would brook no reference to this “mindless looting”. Any mention of the rape of the treasury is easily interpreted as a sign of the Buhari administration’s weakness.

    Apparently unwilling to take it on the chin, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) challenged the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to name the looters it kept on spanking for bringing the economy on its kneels. The APC picked up the gauntlet. It released a teaser; just five names and warned the opposition to keep quiet or risk having its leading lights named and shamed as the King Kong of looting.

    PDP dared APC. Go ahead and name them, it rejoined. APC rolled out a long list of those who allegedly dipped their hands in the till. Many were enraged. PDP Chairman Uche Secondus threatened a legal battle to defend his integrity. He has hired a lawyer to lead his case.

    Former Niger State Governor Babangida Aliyu demanded an apology. He said his name should not have been listed because he stole nothing. It was all malice, he concluded. How? Aliyu said he had been wooed to join the APC, but he would not yield, hence the decision to throw in his name. Interesting.

    Former Permanent Secretary Godknows Igali, who is alleged to have looted N7billion, charged that his name was smuggled into the list “to create the needed effect”. He did not name those who did, but he saw himself as “a victim” and a “scapegoat”. Igali concluded that “these and many more afflictions will come like floods and pass”.

    “There is nothing new under the sun. So, it is well, indeed,” he said.

    Before bringing in the divine angle, I am told, Igali had risked an invitation from the Customs Service, which was to demand the identities of the smugglers so as to go after them. Could they be some out-of-favour rice smugglers who fell out with the authorities at the notorious Seme border? Who knows?

    Femi Fani-Kayode’s response was swift and sharp. In a harsh and brash tone,  he owned up to collecting the money listed against his name – just N860million – from Mrs Nenadi Usman, the Finance Director of the Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation, now disbanded. The cash, he stressed, came from individuals who supported Dr Jonathan’s ambition to return to the Aso Villa. He dared anybody to call him a thief, stressing that the cash came from a private company’s account, which was used to house money from party supporters.

    So infuriated was the PDP that it recommended to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) the proscription of the APC for, according to the opposition party, “undisputed revelations” that it financed the President’s campaign with looted funds. INEC is yet to grant the request. The PDP forgot that it had earlier challenged the APC to name looters.

    Former PDP spokesman Olisa Metuh, who has N400million listed against his name, said it was all a plot to convict him at all cost. Was it not the same Metuh asking to be allowed to enter into a plea bargain?

    Lawyers joined the fray. Some said it was simply contemptuous to name those who were in court fighting to extricate themselves from the web of charges thrown at them. The lists, said the legal minds, amounted to prejudging the cases in court. Others disagreed, saying: “Why won’t you mention names when your evidence is iron-clad?”

    If the angry PDP chiefs eventually file defamation suits in court, what will APC plead? Extreme provocation? Qualified privilege? Fair comment? Public interest? Justification? Legal experts, many of whom we are lucky to have among us, have their job cut out for them.

    Enter the moralists. Who is a looter? Is a politician who got money from his party to prosecute an election without asking where the cash came from a looter? Is it fair to brand somebody a looter without waiting for the courts to say so? Does this amount to jungle justice and mob mentality? Could the receivers have known that the cash came from questionable sources?

    To a young man who read it all in the news, it was a call to some sober reflection. He said: “The only thing I have against this list is simple; why is it that all those who call themselves big men in my village, none made the first list? I thought they would make the supplementary list; none did. No wonder this village has made no progress; mud houses all over; red, rusty roofs and streets clustered with rickety motorcycles (okada) they call empowerment for youths.”

    Another, a student, asked: “How much did Judas get for betraying the Lord and he became a symbol of treachery, his name tarnished forever? Thirty pieces of silver. I’m sure it wasn’t anything close to what an apprentice politician or the lowest ranking public official has taken. But, who will do the conversion now?”

    The exchanges between the APC and the PDP have been quite interesting. It is the type the Afrobeat king, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti – may the Lord bless his soul – called roforofo, a fight in the mud. But, should it have been allowed to get this far?

    I think those who insisted that APC should not talk about corruption–stealing, if you like – of the past got it wrong. How do you learn from the past if you don’t recognise it and take in the lesson of its calamities?

    Besides, why ask APC to shut up when the Constitution gives ample room for freedom of speech? The right to talk and be talked about should not be abridged in any way. After all, yabis is no case (again, apology to the weird one, Fela).

     

    Magomago over Magu’s fate

    AFTER a brief lull, the battle to stop Ibrahim Magu from being the chair of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFFC) seems to be gathering steam. There are plans to suspend Magu for some old, frivolous allegations.

    It is all in a bid to pave the way for a smooth relationship between the Executive and the Legislature, according to sources who are familiar with the latest plot to kick Magu upstairs or just dump him like some refuse.

    Ibrahim Magu
    Ibrahim Magu

    If Magu has not done well, he could get the kick. Raking up some unfounded allegations to get him fired is a disservice to the anti-corruption fight that is so dear to the Muhammadu Buhari administration.

    Those after Magu are said to be claiming that his hard-line stance could affect the President’s electoral fortune in 2019. Isn’t that putting logic on its head? Besides, has the President said he is running? It is clear that they cannot fault the man’s performance; the records are there.

    There are many who can handle the job – so claim some critics. Yes, but what is wrong with Magu? No President worthy of his seat will succumb to intimidation over his choice for an office as delicate as the EFCC chair’s. I doubt if Buhari will, even if the lawmakers insist on grounding the system as they seem to be doing.

    Let all the magomago stop.

  • Unmasking of Odigie-Oyegun

    John Odigie-Oyegun, the chairman of APC, is a man of many colours. To his admirers, he is ‘a purist, a democrat, a strategist; and a tactician, adept in political engineering. But many of his critics will swear, he is a ‘weak, unprincipled, ‘come and chop’ politician. If you ask Itse Sagay, he will not hesitate to tell you that “the leadership of APC is comprised of not only most unprincipled group of people who are “encouraging and accepting rogues…but also of appeasers set to destroy the party because they are weak and unable to confront evil”.

    With President Buhari’s last week rejection of tenure elongation for Odigie-Oyegun, and his National Working Committee (NWC), the sun finally appears set for a man whose politics like those of other military-created ‘new breed politicians’ is defined by divide and rule tactics. Buhari seems to have finally seen through the political subterfuge of Oyegun who after failing to hold congress or conduct elections for three years now cites impending “party elections, second set of elections of governmental aspirants, other Houses of Assembly, House of Representatives, Senate, governorship and so on”, as justification for term elongation which, according to the president is not only undemocratic but a breach of APC as well as the country’s constitutions.

    It must be remembered that Odigie-Oyegun was a military creation. Following the vacuum created in the bureaucracy by Murtala Mohammed and Obasanjo ‘bureaucratic cleansing’ when they took over power in 1975, Oyegun became one of the nation’s youngest permanent secretary at 37 and after only 13 years in service. His fortune has been on the rise ever since. He went on to become the governor of Edo State in 1992 under Babangida’s ill-fated third republic, ANPP chairman at the onset of the fourth republic, and APC chairman in 2014.

    For several weeks after APC’s 2015 victory, secured by a coalition of political parties led by Tinubu’s ACN and Buhari’s CPC, with disparate world views, Oyegun sat back to enjoy the vicious battle for spoils of war by the coalition parties.  The meeting of APC’s elected senators with Buhari fixed for the morning of inauguration of senate presidency was seen by many as part of the political subterfuge. Bukola Saraki, who first claimed not to have been informed of the meeting, later confessed hiding inside a small car, parked in front of the Senate building for over three hours to ensure his fellow 51 APC senators fully settled down for a meeting with the president in another venue before sneaking into the Senate chambers where he was proclaimed Senate President by predominantly PDP senators.

    Treachery within a political party, a cult-like association to which you either belong or not, are unpardonable. But rather than use the big stick to discipline Saraki for his perfidy, Oyegun opted for what Professor Itse Sagay described as policy of appeasement. According to him   “John Odigie-Oyegun and one Bolaji Abdullahi, Saraki’s Man Friday are appeasers … dinning with the devil who will destroy the party”.

    Tinubu, a leading member of the coalition that brought Buhari to power, for insisting on party supremacy, was demonized by Oyegun who in turn impressed it on politically naïve President Buhari that the remedy for eye problem was not eye removal.  A chasm was thus created between Buhari, Tinubu and the Senate. Oyegun was to become the sole beneficiary of the rift between the executive, the Senate and the party leadership at the national level.

    Beyond irreconcilable disagreement between the leadership of the party at the national level, the party soon descended into chaos in about 12 states of the federation. Kano which gave President Buhari the highest vote in 2015 is in turmoil over ego battle between Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, his predecessor in office while party followers that look up to the leadership for direction are in disarray. In Kaduna, where there are two factions of APC, el-Rufai, is locked in a battle of wits with Senator Shehu Sani, his most vocal critic. Just as in Kaduna, there are also two factions of APC in Gombe where disagreement over the 2015 primaries lingers on. In Borno State, Senator Abu Kyari governorship ambition was said to be the cause of the rift between him and Governor Kashim Shettima. In Bauchi, there is no love lost between Speaker Yakubu Dogara and Governor Mohammed Abubakar. In Ondo State, the rift between Akeredolu backed by Oyegun and Abraham backed by Bola Tinubu during the last election is yet to be bridged. In Kogi State where the governor is at war with Senator Melaye, Tony Momoh-led fact finding and reconciliation committee’s 300 page report has not been able to secure peace.

    With the party in disarray under Oyegun, President Buhari, serially betrayed, first by military politicians who deposed and imprisoned him for over three years for implementing a junta’s joint decision, and by politicians who abandoned him in the trenches to haggle for political appointments from victorious PDP, was driven to the embrace of his trusted “cousins and nephews’ who unfortunately do not share his pro-Nigeria sentiments.

    With the fortune of APC, with or without Buhari at stake in 2019, President Buhari appointed Bola Tinubu, the rejected corner stone to reconcile the warring APC factions. Giving a brief on what led to his appointment by Buhari, Tinubu recalled that “since the (2015) elections, there have been allegations of self-induced crisis resulting from merchandising of internal processes. We all must agree that the party was bound to suffer growing pains but not to the extent of losing part of the substantial goodwill that brought us to power.”

    But Oyegun doesn’t seem to bother about the squandering of the goodwill of APC supporters as long as he is in control. If we needed further evidence, Tinubu’s allegation that Oyegun breached ‘promised unalloyed support for {his} mission’ was all that was needed. Tinubu went on to add “Unfortunately, the spirit of understanding and of cooperative undertaking to revive the party seems not to have lived beyond the temporal confines of that meeting. Instead of being a bulwark of support as promised, you positioned yourself in active opposition to the goal of resuscitating the progressive and democratic nature of the APC.”

    And finally, it has become difficult to make a distinction between APC and PDP once widely derided as a party of looters by the former. Although Oyegun proclaimed publicly while welcoming senators Florence Ita-Giwa and Marc Wabara to APC that “APC is not for integrity-challenged politicians currently within the radar of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)’, he has gone on to praise Orji Uzor Kalu, former governor of Abia State who has been facing EFCC charges for alleged corruption since the end of his tenure in 2007 “for making APC vibrant in the south-eastern part of the country.” He has welcomed with open hands, senators Musliu Obanikoro, Jim Nwobodo and many other former PDP stalwarts facing EFCC charges, creating in the process, credibility crisis for the president and the party.

    For many, it is a relief, that Oyegun, the master of political subterfuge who poses as a democrat has finally been unmasked. His quest for tenure elongation for himself and his executive officers across the 36 states of the federation would have meant tenure extension of all elected officials comprising the president, governors, and national and state assembly members.

    It is however a sad commentary on the true character of Nigerian political class, whether APC or PDP, that it has taken a converted democrat like President Buhari who would have been a major beneficiary of tenure elongation  and much persecuted Bola Tinubu, a committed democrat, to show that  Oyegun and some governors led by Rochas Okorocha, the chairman of APC governors forum who has been busy collecting signatories from political appointees to endorse his son-in-law as APC candidate in Imo State, are not different from other anti-democratic military-created new breed politicians such as Tom Ikimi and Tony Anenih, who in 1993 jointly supported the military to derail Babangida’s  eight years of fraudulent transition programme.

  • ACA : 70 and counting

    TODAY, Anwar-ul Islam College (formerly Ahmadiyya College) Agege (ACA)  turns 70. Its story is not different from that of other mission schools. It was founded by men who believed in education and in the development of the mind  through  qualitative learning. The road to the founding of ACA in 1948 was rough. It was a period when Christian secondary schools dotted the landscape. There were no Muslim secondary schools then. It was a big challenge for the fathers of the Islamic faith who witnessed what was going on.

    They watched as their children were either denied places in the Christian schools or forced to change their names and embrace Christianity in order to enter those schools. To them, it was the height of humiliation for a man to be made to denounce his faith just because he wanted to go to school. The belief back then was that Muslims were not at home with Western education. The thinking was once they have gone to primary school and spiced it with Arabic education, that was the end of the matter.

    This profiling of Muslims as no-good when it comes to Western education did not go down well with leading members of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam , the forerunner of the Anwar-ul Islam Movement in Nigeria. They believed that Muslim kids would hold their own against their Christian counterparts if provided a level playing field. These men started thinking about establishing the first Muslim secondary school not only in the country but in West Africa. It was a daunting task, but they gave it their all. Although these men are no more with us today, the seed they sowed 70 years ago have continued to grow.

    These great men were Alhaji Saka Tinubu, Alhaji Jubril Martins, Alhaji Issa Akangbe Williams, Alhaji Nurudeen Bakre Kenku, Alhaji Bakare Disu Oshodi, Alhaji K. D. Oshodi, Alhaji Y. P. O. Shodeinde, Justice Lateef Dosunmu,  Alhaji Fanimokun and Alhaji Allison, among others. They built ACA with their sweat and blood. They turned virtually everything they had over to the school. ACA owes whatever it is today to these eminent men. If not for them, the idea would have remained a dream. They made the dream come true by pooling resources to establish the school.

    Seventy years on, their dream of a great school remains undying because of the steadfastness of many who came after them. My own set was particularly lucky as we entered the school in January, 1973, three months to the celebration of its 25th anniversary on April 5 of the same year. The silver anniversary was celebrated with pomp and ceremony. As bright-eyed kids we had fun like we never did before.

    To ensure that the school took off on a sound footing, Alhaji Martins and Alhaji Bakare Oshodi went on an educational tour of the Middle East and some Muslim countries in 1946. It was a fruitful tour as they got some scholarships for the training of teachers. The Principal of principals, Alhaji Jimoh Adisa Gbadamosi under whose wings many generations of students were groomed, was one of the  beneficiaries of the scholarships. In a piece titled: My stewardship with the college, Alhaji Gbadamosi recalled: “In September, 1949, I proceeded to the British Isles to pursue, on full scholarship of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam, a degree course in Arts and Diploma in Education. With gratitude to God, I returned home in October, 1954 as a qualified graduate teacher with my colleagues, Alhaji R. A. Folami and Alhaji R. A. Balogun, who also completed their academic and professional courses successfully’’.

    The three played great roles in the life of Ahmadiyya College, which name was changed to Anwar-ul Islam College in 1976 shortly before Alhaji Gbadamosi was redeployed to Jubril Martins Memorial Secondary School at Iponri as principal. He swapped places with Alhaji Balogun, who was brought to Agege. Alhaji Gbadamosi had succeeded Alhaji Folami at Agege in 1960. Of the trio, only Alhaji Gbadamosi aka Oga is still alive today. He was 91 on March 18. The story of ACA is one of struggle and determination. It started off at 4, 6 and 8, Olushi Street, Lagos Island, on April 5, 1948. Houses 4 and 6 were donated to the school by Alhaji Martins and Alhaji Kenku; House 8 belonged to the Movement.

    The school came to be because of the commitment of these men and other like minds who came after them like Alhaji Babatunde Jose, who also led the Movement in the late 60s and early 70s. Olushi was too small for the kind of school the founding fathers had in mind. So, in 1942, the Movement acquired 87 acres of land in Oniwaya,  Agege, where the school stands till today. Its take-off at Olushi was almost marred because it could not get a graduate to head it as principal as required by law. Eventually, the Movement’s ‘’tortuous search’’ for a graduate ended when it got a Ghanaian, Mr J. I. Thompson Hagan, for the job.

    To mark the 70th anniversary,  a public lecture titled : ‘’Child education : A lasting legacy’’ will be delivered today at the school hall by Dr Abaniwonda of the Lagos State University (LASU). The lecture will be preceded by a press conference. There is cause for the college to celebrate because it holds a pride of place among secondary schools in the country. Though 70, it has achieved what many colleges which are older than it have not achieved. In academics and extra-curricula activities, the school is not a push over.

    Where will the school be in the next 30 years? By then, it will be 100, an age, which many of the schools it rubs shoulders with, have since attained. At 100, ACA will not be less the school it is today. The school remains standing because of the solid foundation laid by its founders. It has had its ups and downs, especially following the acquisition of mission schools by the government in 1978. Things have since turned around for it for good following the return of the schools to their owners. The school can only go higher and higher in order to keep the dream of its founding fathers alive. And that is the only way it can continue to live up to its motto, which is  Aut Optimum Aut Nihil (Either the best or nothing).

  • Judgement without justice

    I had once written about miscarriage of justice a year or so ago in Osun State. That was when a high court judge sentenced three young boys to death for stealing by force a motor bicycle. The robbers’ ages ranged between 19 and 22. I had argued that even though armed robbery carried mandatory death penalty, the judge who in this instance was a mother herself could have used her discretion to send the boys to jail for a few years to learn a hard lesson especially since nobody died during the robbery incident. I am for tough punishment for errant behaviour, but such punishment must be measured and not excessive. Laws are made for social reformation and not for unusual punishment

    In the same country a director handling police pensions was accused of stealing N24 billion in 2013. He was taken to court by the EFCC and a high court judge in Abuja jailed him for two years with the option of a fine of N750,000 which he promptly paid and was seen being later driven out of the court premises in a Mercedes Benz car. A fine of less than one million naira for stealing N24 billion can hardly be described as adequate punishment to deter others. The EFCC appealed the judgement asking the higher court to make a ruling on if the High Court judgement was defensible judicially. The Court of Appeal reversed the decision of the lower court and fined the director by the name of Yusuf and asked him to return N23 billion to the Treasury and go to jail for six years. If this offence had been committed in China, this senior civil servant would have been executed. The lower court had dismissed all the 29 counts against him and merely condemned him for betraying the trust of retired policemen to whom the money belonged. I do not know why the appeal court ordered the man to refund N23 billion rather than N24 billion he was accused of stealing! At least this is still progress. Those who are shouting about the nation’s poor rating in corruption index had better look more at the judiciary that seems to enjoy throwing out all cases of corruption before it even when the evidence is poking it in the face . Who does not remember the case of a former governor who was declared innocent of several counts of corruption, money laundering, graft, bribery and sundry other nefarious practices by a high court judge in Asaba. The same man was later jailed for the same offences and served about seven years in London as guest of Her Majesty’ s prison.

    Cases drag on till eternity in Nigeria without closure with one injunction following adjournment until the presiding judge dies for the case to start de novo before another judge while the charade begins and rolls on as before until the case is forgotten outright. Many criminals with stolen money are roaming the streets freely and enjoying their loot asking for permission to go abroad for medical treatment in the same country where petty thieves are having their hands and limbs cut off on orders of Sharia court judges. The legal profession ought to examine itself instead of lawyers being masters of ambiguity defending a client in one court and prosecuting another case of the same offence in another court without any conscience about public good. I remember several years ago when a certain high court judge in Kano while sentencing a criminal to jail said he wished he were permitted by law to sentence the defence lawyer to jail at the same time for misleading the court and perverting the cause of justice. Using the same argument, appeal courts while reversing bad judgements of lower courts should be empowered at least to disrobe bad judges or demote them to the level of magistrates. That will send a strong message that bad and corrupt judges and lawyers are not above the law. The judiciary is so critical to the rule of law that if people lose respect for it, they may resort to self-help and rule of the jungle. When apparently obvious criminal cases are thrown out on mere legal technicalities, this does not help the cause of justice. The law may be an ass, but judges should not behave like asses. It is obvious that judgements are sometimes for sale to the highest bidder.  A “big” man in Lagos once said rather than hire an expensive lawyer, he would seek out the judge privately and offer him what would have cost him to hire a lawyer and get the judgement he wants. It reminds me of an American judge in Boston Massachusetts who drunkenly said he takes bribes from litigants before his court and when people were aghast with this open confession, he added that he normally takes bribes from both sides and then declare judgement based on law. Even though his logic made sense, he was immediately removed from the bench as a judicial rascal and bad example.

    In Nigeria we have great judges before like the late Justices Kayode Esho and Chukudifu Oputa but they are few and far between. The process of judicial appointments is faulty. It depends on the executive at state and federal levels and it is a case of who pays the piper dictates the tune. Good lawyers are also not ready to abandon their lucrative practices to go to the bench. The salaries of judges are too low and not commensurate with the burden they carry and the temptations they face. Of course salaries are generally low in Nigeria but if legislators are going home with huge amount of money computed at more than one million a day in salaries, allowances, running costs and constituency projects, one can make a case for judicial officers to be paid much higher than they are earning. Perhaps the country can borrow a leaf from Lee Kuan Yew, the late prime minister of Singapore who paid public servants a lot of money so that they were not tempted to steal unless they were insanely greedy. I remember when I was ambassador in Germany, my Singaporean colleague earned five times my Foreign Service allowances. To be able to do what was done in Singapore, our country would have to move from our present economic pedestal of primary production to industrial and service economy. But in the meantime, there is a need for revolutionary reform of our judiciary. The present situation where people run from one court of equal jurisdiction to another of the same with the purpose of seeking contradictory judgements ought to be frowned upon and stopped in order to maintain judicial integrity. The qualification of judges ought to be raised and well scrutinized. There have been cases of fake lawyers being appointed judges and presiding in courts for years before being found out. The Justice Kayode Esho’s findings some years ago exposed this and instead of the culprits being charged to court and jailed, they were simply removed and asked to go home.

    Finally this brings me to the philosophical basis of the judiciary. One is familiar with the platonic idea of laws being a manifestation of imperfect state because there is no room for laws in an ideal state where everything will work perfectly under a philosopher king. But since there is not the likelihood of a utopia anywhere on earth, laws must exist to regulate human interaction and relations so that society can be governed on the basis of equity and fairness and the rich and the poor can expect to be treated equally. Rather than permit the rule of the mighty man, society will be governed by laws which will operate neutrally with no respect to persons. This is what our judiciary is supposed to rise up to. The question is have they risen up to it? Do we in Nigeria have justice for every one or judgement that is priced above the means of the common man?

  • Danjuma’s bombshell

    GETTING him to talk is a big problem. Many times reporters go after him hoping to get a word  or two from him on burning issues, but he never obliged them. To him, a general’s actions, not words, should speak for him. Gen Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma, popularly known as TY,  former Chief of Army Staff, former Minister of Defence and a civil war hero, is as taciturn as they come.

    Danjuma brooks no nonsense and he has been like that since his army days. As a soldier, he knows the consequences of yielding ground to your opponent when you have the opportunity to finish him off. The soldier in Danjuma has been awakened by the killings in the Northeast, Northcentral and the riverine areas. The soldier in Danjuma was never dead. What infuriates him is that in a country with soldiers, some herdsmen are going about killing and maiming. The soldier in Danjuma cannot stand that and the man of steel lashed out at the military for not doing anything to stop the killings. Since the man, who hardly speaks,  spoke, the nation has known no rest.

    He was blunt as he assessed the herdsmen killings in Benue, Adamawa, Nasarawa and his home state of Taraba. “Taraba State”, he began, “is a mini Nigeria where we have many ethnic groups living together peacefully. But the peace in this state is under assault. There is an attempt at ethnic cleansing in this state, and of course, all the riverine states of Nigeria. We must resist it…every one of us must rise up. The armed forces are not neutral. They collude; they collude; they collude with the armed bandits that kill people and kill Nigerians. They facilitate their movement. They cover them.”

    Even though he spoke in anger, he made his point clear. “This ethnic cleansing”, he warned, must stop, otherwise we will go the Somalia way. We all know what has been happening in Somalia since 1991. The government cannot dismiss what Danjuma said because he is not known to be flippant. He must have seen and heard certain things before he spoke the way he did. But he has access to the President, some would say. Why didn’t he meet with the President on the issue before going public? Others would ask. Do those talking like this know whether he tried to explore that avenue but made no head way? Anyway, the matter is now in the public domain.

    Since it is Danjuma that spoke, the government will be compelled to listen. If it had been another inconsequential person, he would have been cooling his heels in detention by now. Danjuma’s outburst came at the right time. Look at what is happening in Benue. Ever since 73 people were killed there by herdsmen on January 1, the killings have not stopped. So, also in Plateau, Adamawa, Nasarawa. It is the duty of the armed forces to defend not only the territorial integrity of our country, but to also maintain internal security. Criticising or abusing Danjuma for  what he said is not the way out. The way out is for the military to do a soul searching. Has it done what it should do to stop these killings?

    If the military cannot stop  killer- herdsmen or their ilk from wreaking havoc on the land, who will? Danjuma knew what he was saying when he accused the military of “colluding with armed bandits to kill Nigerians”. As a former army chief, he must have his own way of gathering intelligence about goings-on in the country, especially in his home state of Taraba. As a son of the soil, Danjuma must be concerned about what is going on in Taraba. He cannot watch his people being killed and keep quiet. With what two local government chairmen in the state said, which corroborates Danjuma’s statement, the military has some questions to answer. Takum Local Government Chairman Shiban Tikari and his Ussa local government counterpart Rimamsikwe Karma claimed that troops have been aiding killer-herdsmen. They claimed that Governor Darius Ishaku as the chief security officer of the state does not know what the military and other security agencies are doing because he is not being carried along.

    In one word, the governor has been sidelined in security matters concerning his state. What is the military’s response? The military said it is neutral, contrary to Danjuma’s claim. It, also for the first time on Monday, said it got reports of soldiers’ misconduct in some states, but none from Taraba. What did it do about those reports? It claimed to have put those soldiers through “disciplinary procedures”. Well, it is good to hear that. What kind of “disciplinary procedures” did they go through? Who and who were found culpable? How were they punished? These are some of the things the military should tell us and not that vague statement of some soldiers being put through “disciplinary procedures”. For all we know, it may not be doing anything at all. This may just be a face saving statement in reaction to Danjuma’s outburst. All because Danjuma sneezed, the military caught cold. That is good enough. If it took Danjuma’s comment to get the military to wake up, may he continue to speak every day on vexed issues. May his tribe increase.

     

    The man died

    BEFORE his death on Monday, MMM Pyramid founder  Sergei Mavrodi, a Russian, caused the death and bankruptcy of many who were looking for quick money. I do not understand his Ponzi scheme under which you are expected to make your money grow by the number of other investors you bring on board. To me, it was too good to be true. But in a society like ours where poverty is rampant, people embraced it with all they have – and ended up losing all. Yet, many did not learn any lesson. They stuck to the scheme and were waiting for its return after it was shut down some months ago to tie up some loose ends. That was not to be. Mavrodi died of heart attack on Monday – killing also the dreams of many to become millionaires. Hope many will also not die of heart attack because of his death?

  • African free market

    The recently signed protocol in Kigali Rwanda to set up an African economic community is already plagued by lack of unanimity. First of all, there is nothing new in the idea which was first articulated in the 1991 Abuja charter on the same issue of a common market in Africa. What the Kigali treaty is attempting to do is to bring into reality an idea whose time has come. There are examples to go by. The European Union provides a useful paradigm for Africa to follow. Africa can learn from the problems of the European Union which have led to the impending withdrawal (BREXIT) of Britain and threatened expulsion of economically insolvent Greece. The fact that Nigeria and South Africa stayed away from the Kigali protocol at least for now raises fundamental issues about the process of the negotiations preceding the signing of the protocol and therefore foreshadows the future viability of the project.

    It seems to me that Nigeria was on board until the last minute when organized labour and the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) began to voice some misgivings about the deal on two grounds of possible flooding of Nigerian market with goods coming from Europe and Asia being repackaged as goods of African origin and therefore leading to market loss for manufacturers and unemployment for Nigerian workers. I do not know why South Africans stayed away because they are likely to be the biggest beneficiary of an African common market in view of their developed manufacturing base. Perhaps the staying away of Nigeria made nonsense of the whole idea in view of the fact of Nigeria’s huge market for South African goods and services.

    Whatever the case may be, nobody can seriously argue against the idea of Africa pulling together to protect itself in a world of rising nationalism and protectionism particular in America and Europe. Ironically, it is China a communist country that is currently championing free trade which has been an article of faith of capitalists since Adam Smith wrote his book the “The Wealth of Nations” in 1775. Of course China is championing free trade not out of altruism but enlightened self-interest. This is because China is more or less the workshop of the whole world and free trade as far as China is concerned is freedom to sell its cheap goods in all markets of the world whether in developed or under developed countries.

    One of the strongest arguments in favour of African common market is that intra-African trade is negligible. Even where the idea of economic integration is well and alive as in the ECOWAS, Southern African Development Community (SADC) and in the MAGHREBIAN countries, trade within those areas are also almost at rudimentary levels. There is hardly any economic contact between East and West, North and South of the continent facilitating closer economic interaction and trade. This lack of economic cooperation may be why the quantum of African trade with the rest of the world remains abysmally small sometimes put at about 4% the same with small Belgium. To increase this is what is at the back of the minds of economic planners for Africa. For example, instead of 53 national airlines, one well-endowed airline operating in a continental open air space regime will not only be more viable and efficient but will also be able to compete with foreign airlines on the continent. Manufacturers will also benefit from economy of scale when servicing a tariff free continent wide market. Transport and electrical grids serving across borders would break down inherited colonial artificial boundaries separating African peoples, labour and capital.

    The problem really is ensuring a win-win situation for individual countries. This is the crux of the problem. To avoid benefits going to either the big economies alone or the smaller ones that can be infiltrated by foreign economic interests to reap the benefits of a big market, things will need to be properly worked out.

    For some time the EU has been putting pressure on ECOWAS to revise the so called Lome convention to give its members unfettered entry into its market without adequate protection for domestic manufacturing companies. If not properly negotiated, the new African market could be a Trojan horse by which African economy will be subverted by stronger European and Asian economic power. This was the case when under the AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity) Act enacted in the USA on May 18, 2000 now renewed till 2025. Sub Saharan states in Africa were granted access to the United States market. Chinese companies took advantage of this by setting up textile companies in Southern African countries of Lesotho and Swaziland. The result is that previously prospering textile manufacturing companies could not compete and benefit from AGOA. This was the experience in Nigeria and this may have been the reason why organized labour in Nigeria has been hostile to the coming common market in Africa.

    Nigeria should however not become a cog in the wheel of African economic integration and progress. Whatever concerns we have must be put on the table so that we can find appropriate solutions that would be acceptable to other countries. I am of course aware of a possible gang-up of smaller and poorer countries against Nigerian interest. This is because in recent times, perhaps because of our internal problems in the militancy in the Niger Delta and insurgency of the Boko Haram, Nigeria has been punching below its weight in global and African affairs thus allowing the likes of Rwanda to dictate the tune without the ability to pay the piper. The original common market for Africa was first mooted by Nigeria in Abuja in 1991. Our country’s diplomacy should have been out in the front directing negotiation favourable to our economic aspirations instead of waiting until the last minute to block the movement towards greater integration.

    We will of course make some sacrifices and provide funds for the secretariat hopefully to be domiciled appropriately in Abuja while we open our air space to a commonly supported African aviation. One thing that is clear is that this continent will not make it until we have the necessary transportation and communications links. I remember having to travel to N’djamena in the 1980s from Lagos via Paris before coming to a neighbouring country of Chad. This is probably still the case today. The insecurity problem most African countries face is probably the result of their isolation from each other and the rest of the world. Any organizational instrument that will obviate the terrible situation will be a welcome initiative. I can also think of the problem of water management on the continent in which a continental approach will be better than unilateral or bilateral approach. The current prickly relations between Ethiopia and Egypt over the massive dam across the Nile in Ethiopia  comes readily to mind because if the Nile does not flow to Sudan and Egypt in correct volume, it will be disastrous to all the riparian states downstream from the Ethiopian highlands. The shrinking of Lake Chad can be reversed if the course of the Shari and Ubangi Rivers in the CAR are diverted to the lake. The underutilized Congo River can be exploited for electricity to a wider spectrum of countries in central and even West Africa. Financing which is the main problem for gigantic projects would be easier to negotiate with the force of a continental economic union backing them. In other words, walking away from the economic union or Zollverein is not the solution; the solution is to make the economic community work for every country with each country contributing to the pool of economic activities based on each country’s comparative advantage.

  • Danjuma’s belated rebellion

    Open grazing, Miyyeti Allah say with a foreboding finality, is not just the culture of Fulani, it is also their hobby. That non-negotiable position immediately forecloses

    ranching, which represents the world’s best practices as an option.  But open grazing in a multi-ethnic society is an invitation to conflict especially between subsistence farmers and herdsmen. Confrontation between AK-47 riffle-wielding herdsmen who value the life of a cow to that of a man and poor subsistence farmers protecting their farms  with bare hands have led to a harvest of deaths especially among the farmers in recent years.

    To forestall further clashes and the attendant mindless killings, some states passed anti-open grazing laws. The Inspector-General of Police (IGP) however was reported as insisting such states laws could not be implemented until after such states have provided ranches for herdsmen. The killings continue across the states with the police and the army unable to apprehend the marauders who openly graze their cattle on captured territories. The president appealed for calm while admonishing the aggrieved to be accommodating of settlers in their midst. But the nation remains under siege by those many believe are not even Nigerians who have turned the country to a killing field. And while the nation, according to Professor Wole Soyinka, an elder statesman, had expected President Buhari to “give orders that the bloodthirsty terrorists are brought to book, what the nation got was a president showing up at the arena of human desecration to shed unjust tears.”

    But President Buhari who often wrongly equates his righteousness with effective governance also seems not to be listening to anyone outside his cult of trusted allies. Earlier, precisely on January 29, Amnesty International issued a statement claiming “The Nigerian authorities’ response to communal violence is totally inadequate, too slow and ineffective, and in some cases unlawful. They revealed that “Clashes between herdsmen and farmers in Adamawa, Benue, Taraba, Ondo and Kaduna have resulted in 168 deaths in January 2018 alone”. There have been several deaths between then and now.

    Last week, the usual taciturn retired General Theophilus Danjuma, former Minister of Defence joined the growing list of concerned Nigerians who fear our country is heading for a shipwreck. While describing what is “happening in Taraba and other states as ethnic cleansing’ which needed to be stopped if we are to prevent the nation from the fate of Somalia, he called on “Nigerians, to be alert to defend their country and their territories, because they have nowhere to go”. Danjuma went further to allege that the armed forces, by colluding and facilitating “the movement of those who kill Nigerians, are not neutral”.

    In the face of government’s apparent helplessness, Danjuma’s call on the people to defend themselves as provided for in our constitution can hardly be faulted. Rather than a call to arms, I think it is a challenge to the states that often wait on federal government for everything to set up vigilante groups which can be supported by underfunded police formations in their states with contributions from their state security votes as Lagos State first did with LASTMA. Besides, a  call from taciturn Danjuma to  taciturn Buhari who listens to no one but a small circle of his trusted confidants who we now know do not necessarily share his pan Nigeria passion, may be a wakeup call from his deep slumber.

    But far more important is Danjuma’s reference to the betrayal of the country by the military. Danjuma is eminently qualified to speak on the Nigerian military that often fraudulently claim to sacrifice their present for our future. The recent attempt by the army spokesman to debunk Danjuma’s allegation of army collusion with those who harbour anti-Nigeria agenda is not supported by facts of history the military whether now nor in the past has never been neutral observers on the issues of Nigerian politics.

    The Nigerian military from the onset was a colonial specially crafted sectional apparatus for power and domination. It was no surprise therefore that by 1961, just one year after independence, it became a tool used by the northern ruling political elite to suppress the legitimate aspiration of the oppressed Tivs for self-actualization.

    In 1962, the military stood by as the First Republic Prime Minister, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, and his NPC used a group of thugs to effectively abridge the progress of the Western Region. In 1964, the so-called custodian of our constitution watched Balewa’s NPC award itself over 23 million votes out of total votes of 23.6 million without forgetting to allocate 4,863 and 1,103 votes to (AG) and NCNC respectively. The military stood by the fraud in the constitutional crisis between Prime Minister Balewa and President Azikiwe that followed.

    In July 1966, when an armed northern mob in military uniform protesting over the killing of northern military officers and political leaders during the Igbo-inspired January 1966 coup, Major Danjuma, capitalising on the fact that there were only 50 Yoruba soldiers out of 500 based in Ibadan and 26 out of a battalion based in Abeokuta selected the most able loyal northern to replace Major General Aguiyi Ironsi’s normal guards. And thereafter told him with bravado “you are under arrest; you organized the killings of our brothers in January… you will answer for your action”. Ironsi and Fajuyi, his chief hosts were later shot. Except Murtala Muhammed who was bent on northern secession and sinking of Lagos with a dynamite, the other main actors in the July vengeance coup that led to the death of over 200 military officers include Danjuma, Gowon and Martin Adamu and a number of other  middle belters have often tried to be more northerner than the northerners. Although, they all claimed to have been driven by patriotism, but we have no evidence such patriotic zeal was driven by altruism since they were all richly rewarded for their pains with Gowon with over 11 senior military officers ahead of him becoming Head of state and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, and Danjuma becoming one of the nation’s best army chief who went on to make huge personal fortune from the state.

    In 1993, when the most credible election in our country won by MKO Abiola was annulled on behalf of Fulani Hausa north, according to Babangida. The dirty job was executed by Ibrahim Babangida, Joshua Dongoyaro, late John Shagaya, Jeremiah Useni and David Mark, all from the now-besieged middle belt region. And when the military under Babangida and Abacha degenerated to “an army of anything is possible” and  became an instrument for creating more states, more LGAs and foisting of  a unitary constitution on Nigeria in 1998,Danjuma and his middle belt officers worked tirelessly for their northern natural leaders.

    General Abacha, the maximum ruler sustained his war against the Yoruba and by extension Nigeria with some help from Danjuma who for his pains got an oil block.  Danjuma was also a pillar of support for Obasanjo during his ‘mainstreaming’ war against Yoruba.

    Middle Belt’s current political leaders in deference to their Hausa/Fulani natural leaders but in total betrayal of their illustrious forbears, have always been violently opposed to restructuring and state police. Ex-Governor Gabriel Suzwan narrowly escaped death during an ambush by herdsmen. David Mark as Senate President for eight years only shed crocodile tears each time scores of his people got killed. Chief Audu Ogbe, Minister for Agriculture is the chief exponent of ‘cattle colonies’ in Middle Belt and southern states for whom the  argument of those who believe the uncharted Sambisa forest said to be six times the size of Lagos state is a better alternative count for little.

    With the exception of Danjuma’s current belated rebellion, the restructuring battle for which Middle Belt’s illustrious forbears fought and died holds no attraction for current leaders. The potential for integration into the northern ruling caste through political appointments, business connections or by marriage has become a more rewarding option.